1 Crawling in My Skin
2 Take One for the Team, Glorious Communism
3 Two of a Kind, Extra Move Action
4 This Is Getting Crowded

Multimonster: A multimonster is a single creature that is made up of multiple different component creatures. The fluff for this varies and is essentially arbitrary, but whatever the fluff the rules are the same and described below. Every multimonster consists of a single primary creature and one or more secondary creatures; the ability that turns a character into a multimonster determines which is which.

Space: All creatures in a multimonster occupy the exact same space. Secondary creatures have their space set to that of the primary's. These creatures cannot provide cover to or otherwise obstruct one another, because they are in fact the same creature moving and acting together.

Targeting: For the purposes of being targeted or being within an area of effect, a multimonster is affected once period instead of once per component creature. Choosing which component creature to affect is a part of targeting, and the decision is made by the person choosing targets. If the ability can target the same creature multiple times, the controller need not choose the same component creaure each time. If the effect is environmental or does not have a clear controller who can choose targets, the multimonster may decide which component creature is affected. Observe that component creatures which generate area harmful effects to which they personally are immune or excluded from can avoid harming other component creatures by choosing to target themselves.

Movement: Any action that moves a single component creature moves all component creatures. Any effect that would limit the movement of a single component creature limits the movement of all component creatures. This is true whether the movement in question is walking, planeshifting, or being bull rushed; the creatures are inseparable.

Acting: Each component creature of a multimonster rolls initiative independently. Multimonsters have their own standard and swift actions, but share a single move action between all their component creatures in any given round. As such, only one component creature may forfeit that move action (along with their standard) to perform a full-round action. When an action provokes an attack of opportunity from multiple component creatures, only one component creature may take the attack (the other creatures AoO's are not expended).

Mind: Component creatures share thoughts, memories, and senses. While they do not share mental ability scores or skills, they are of one mind and act together. Despite being of one mind, they are four different creatures for the purposes of mind-affecting effects. For example, a dominated component creature (even the primary creature) does not infect other component creatures with its condition. One component creature attacking another is considered a suicidal or self-destructive action. The multimonster always controls assignment of its own move action, no matter how many mind-affecting effects have been dropped on it.

Equipment: Any component creature has use of the held weapons and equipment of any other component creature, but neither worn armor nor worn magic items are shared. Only one component creature may benefit from a given worn armor/magic item at a time. Reassigning a piece of equipment from one component creature to another requires two full-round actions; one taken by the previous user to relinquish it, and one taken by the next user to claim it. If you are using attunement rules, each component creature must individually attune any magical item it wishes to benefit from the effects of (even shared weapons). Multiple component creatures can attune to the same item, but as above only one will benefit from its effects at a time.

Death: When a component creature is reduced to -10 hitpoints, it must make a fortitude save with a DC equal to half the damage dealt or the DC of the effect which killed it. If it fails that saving throw, the component creature is dead. Any effect which can bring the dead back to life can be used on the component creature to restore it to life without level loss. For these purposes, restoration functions as raise dead and regenerate functions as true resurrection. If it succeeds the saving throw, the component creature is alive, unconscious, has its hitpoints set to -9, and cannot be woken or benefit from any form of healing except natural rest until its hitpoints are once again positive. If all component creatures die, or are at -9 hitpoints as a result of each succeeding the saving throw to avoid death, the multimonster itself dies.

Crawling in My Skin: You become a multimonster and may select as a secondary creature any monster whose CR is at least 3 less than your own character level (or CR, if that is more appropriate). Whenever you gain a level, you may choose a new creature or upgrade your existing one, so long as it remains 3 below your own character level (or CR). In this context, monster means "any creature that does not have class levels." As an exception to the usual multimonster rules, this secondary creature acts on the initiative count of the primary creature.

Take One for the Team: As an immediate action, the primary creature may redirect an attack or effect targeted at the multimonster from one component creature to another.

Two of a Kind: You gain an additional secondary creature that is an identical copy of yourself. Your copy does not gain any of the class features from Big Boss, but it does have the class levels.

Glorious Communism: Unlike most multimonsters, any number of component creatures may benefit from the same magic item at any given time. While multiple component creatures may attune the same magical armor for its enhancement bonus and special properties, only one component creature may actually wear a piece of armor for its non-enhancement armor bonus. Item usage limits (such as daily uses) are tracked per item, not per user.

This Is Getting Crowded: You gain an additional secondary creature exactly as described in Crawling in My Skin. The two creatures need not be identical. Instead of acting on the initiative of the primary creature, the second monster acts on the initiative of the copy granted by Two of a Kind.

Extra Move Action: You gain a second shared move action.

Last edited by DSMatticus on Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:42 am; edited 9 times in total

I think this is a really cool idea and I'm working on different flavourings for different character concepts so you could tack this on anyone and have it feel thematically cohesive.

For mages I like the idea of having their monsters take the form of casting foci, familiars, magical aura's, magical conduits of energy, or magical architecture. For warriors I like their monsters taking the form of mounts, focal weaponry, spirit forms, or mirror selves. It's also a possibility to consider that instead of making characters incorporate monsters in themselves that they could instead incorporate lower level versions of their own class.

Speaking mechanically now. One thing I don't like is making all the copies go on the same initiative count. That's a mistake I think. By letting the various identities interrupt the party turn you would make the encounter feel like less of a dogpile. One or perhaps two party members would take their turn and then the Big Boss should move and react again. This could remove the complication of your extra move action not allowing movement because I see no reason why we shouldn't let it do so. You could even make the first identity and monster act on the initiative count you rolled and the second identity and monster act on the rolled initiative count -10 automatically. I think it should be a goal to try to make the Boss seem mobile, active, and responsive even in a turn based game because a primary source of discontentment for single Boss fights is the dogpile effect.

I also feel you should say that the Big Boss can only take 1 attack of opportunity when one is provoked between all his identities. That way he can react many times, feeling more fluid, rather than beating the first person to death who drinks a potion._________________

For mages I like the idea of having their monsters take the form of casting foci, familiars, magical aura's, magical conduits of energy, or magical architecture. For warriors I like their monsters taking the form of mounts, focal weaponry, spirit forms, or mirror selves. It's also a possibility to consider that instead of making characters incorporate monsters in themselves that they could instead incorporate lower level versions of their own class.

The fluff for what a multimonster is is left deliberately open. If you went mage-type 5/big boss 5, you could be a mage-type (original), familiar (first monster), casting foci (copy), and [mystical bullshit here] (second monster). If you went warrior-type 5/big boss 5, you could be a warrior-type (original), mount (first monster), mirror self (copy), and [magical weapon/inner spirit monster here] (second monster).

Dean wrote:

This could remove the complication of your extra move action not allowing movement because I see no reason why we shouldn't let it do so.

There are two things I really, really do not want. You might disagree with the reasoning, but I hate them and I think they are a stupid. Here they are:
1) Being a multimonster automatically makes you Sonic the Hedgehog. Note that each creature can move the entire multimonster with its move action. Four humans strapped together should not move 120ft/round using their combined actions. I don't even care about the balance aspects, it just pisses me off and does not fit the theme of what a multimonster is. An ogretroll should not move ~2x faster than both the ogre and the troll in any given round.
2) Being a bunch of closet trolls strapped together is ever a good idea. That character sounds incredibly boring to me, and if I can incentivize people to pick up component creatures who have interesting standard actions I'm going to do that because fuck that character.

Dean wrote:

You could even make the first identity and monster act on the initiative count you rolled and the second identity and monster act on the rolled initiative count -10 automatically.

I was honestly very torn on the initiative issue, and I'm not particularly happy with it as is. I made the call I did because I wanted to maintain PC/NPC symmetry, and I thought to myself "it is bad enough to have a player taking four different turns, having him take them at different times would be a god damn nightmare." That said, changing it. It's more important that the class be NPC-friendly than PC-friendly.

Dean wrote:

I also feel you should say that the Big Boss can only take 1 attack of opportunity when one is provoked between all his identities. That way he can react many times, feeling more fluid, rather than beating the first person to death who drinks a potion.

There are two things I really, really do not want. You might disagree with the reasoning, but I hate them and I think they are a stupid. Here they are:
1) Being a multimonster automatically makes you Sonic the Hedgehog. Note that each creature can move the entire multimonster with its move action. Four humans strapped together should not move 120ft/round using their combined actions. I don't even care about the balance aspects, it just pisses me off and does not fit the theme of what a multimonster is. An ogretroll should not move ~2x faster than both the ogre and the troll in any given round.

I agree for the most part. I think allowing all 4 identities to move the character would be overkill and look clumsy. That said I have no problem with allowing the identical copy from Two of A Kind to move everyone. It's true that a 3rd Big Boss Troll/Ogre/Troll could move twice as fast as a regular troll but expeditious retreat isn't something that awes people. Whatever level the Big Boss is playing at his running speed wouldn't be something people even find noteworthy. Even at 8th level, the minimum level you could get your second identity, an ability to move an additional 30 feet with a move or 120 feet with a full round action wouldn't be impressive to anyone. The party that's fighting that character sees their Wizard dimension door 5 times that distance every fight and their Barbarian charges that far every attack he can. If the Two Of A Kind identity can move the body but not the monsters you get a happy middle ground between being The Flash and being dogpiled.

Brainstorming here: You could possibly say the same thing about initiative to solve your initiative problems. If you let each Two of a Kind copy get their own initiative score but the monsters each set their score to a dedicated copy then a PC would get two initiative rolls instead of 4 and gum up the works less but the monster would still go twice when built as an NPC (NPC's would almost always be built with 3 or 5 levels in my mind). How does that strike you?

Quote:

and I got myself a shiny new Chimera that pounces, breaths fire, and poisons.

To get a great Chimera you'd actually want to take 3 levels. You'd get 2 Dire Lion identities and you would just skin one as having a goat head. Then you've got a monster attached which could either be a Huge Constrictor or a Young Dragon depending on whether you want your Chimera to be D&D or Classic. If you grabbed the Dragon for instance you'd have a Chimera that could fly, have a breathe weapon, and has two sets of powerful melee attacks. What's awesome is you could attack the Dragon head to get rid of the monsters ability to fly. That's badass. I think there's a lot of potential in these rules.

EDIT: I wanted to mention that I think it might be beneficial to let AOE's target all monsters in the multimonster. AOE's are rarely too good and are generally not good enough. Letting a Fireball deal shitty damage to all parts of a multimonster might seem like a saving grace to an otherwise useless spell. If we're trying to replicate the feeling of fighting 4 monsters simultaneously than we shouldn't scale down the usefulness of AOE effects because 4 people would all be caught in an AOE effect in that case. I don't feel strongly about this so if anyone has a really good reason to nerf AOE effects against multibosses that's fine but it occurs to me as against what we're trying to accomplish._________________

and I got myself a shiny new Chimera that pounces, breaths fire, and poisons.

You don't get a third component creature until level 3. Also, your third component creature is an exact copy of you. You don't get a third "type" of monster until level 5. Note that I wrote the multimonster rules separate from the class features because they are supposed to be generalizable to other classes that use the same mechanic, so you could make a "chimera" prestige class modelled after Big Boss with a prereq like "no class levels other than Big Boss" and hands out a different monster type each time.

Dean wrote:

That said I have no problem with allowing the identical copy from Two of A Kind to move everyone.

You could possibly say the same thing about initiative to solve your initiative problems. If you let each Two of a Kind copy get their own initiative score but the monsters each set their score to a dedicated copy then a PC would get two initiative rolls instead of 4

The general megamonster rules will remain that each component creature acts on its own initiative. I will add rules to Crawling in My Skin and This Is Getting Crowded specifying that they are exceptions, and that the first and second monster act on the initiative of the original and the copy, respectively. For both PC's and NPC's, but two turns actually makes me pretty happy in both cases.

Dean wrote:

I wanted to mention that I think it might be beneficial to let AOE's target all monsters in the multimonster. AOE's are rarely too good and are generally not good enough. Letting a Fireball deal shitty damage to all parts of a multimonster might seem like a saving grace to an otherwise useless spell. If we're trying to replicate the feeling of fighting 4 monsters simultaneously than we shouldn't scale down the usefulness of AOE effects because 4 people would all be caught in an AOE effect in that case. I don't feel strongly about this so if anyone has a really good reason to nerf AOE effects against multibosses that's fine but it occurs to me as against what we're trying to accomplish.

AoE damage effects are ass, but AoE save-or-sucks aren't. The idea is to have the Big Boss be ablatively worn down by save-or-sucks, not to have the wizard pull his usual encounter-clearing shenanigans and effectively win the battle immediately.
Anyway, something I wanted to ask now. I made Big Boss five levels long because five and ten are prestige class standards, but it feels like that pushes the original character too far below the intended CR. You're a CR 10 creature that is actually {CR 5, CR 5, CR 7, CR 7}. Whereas if Big Boss were four levels long, you'd be a CR 9 creature that is actually {CR 5, CR 5, CR 6, CR 6}. That sounds a lot closer to me. Should I just combine level 4 and 5?

Last edited by DSMatticus on Sun Mar 08, 2015 2:36 am; edited 3 times in total

AOE Save or Sucks should be less threatening to the Boss because he gets multiple saves against the effect. I still think AOE should affect all identities but I have an idea that should solve your problems too, I'll show you in a sec

Looking at the class, Glorious Communism should either be the default rules or not included at all. It's a real game changer for how the class operates with the rules. I think the simplest thing is to have Glorious Communism just be how the class acts with Magic items at base. It cuts down on complication and it makes it so the class doesn't have a paradigm shift 4 levels into it.

Big Boss should definitely be 4 levels long you're right. Anything longer is pushing it off its CR. Here's what I think its levels should look like

1 Unstoppable, Flashing Red
2 Crawling in my Skin
3 Two of a Kind
4 This is Getting Crowded

Unstoppable: A Big Boss will keep fighting or die trying. If a spell, spell like ability, supernatural ability, or spell like effect targets the Big Boss and offers a saving throw the Big Boss deal himself damage to cancel any effect of that spell on him. To do this the Big Boss takes 10 damage per spell level of the effect and it does not affect him at all. The spell can still affect other targets in its area.
Flashing Red: For one round you can modify your spells or spell like abilities as if by the Explosive Spell metamagic. This does not change spell levels and it functions with spell like abilities Additionally anyone you hit with a melee attack is affected as if they had been hit with a successful Awesome Blow attack. This is an extraordinary ability and can be used once every 5 minutes.

Unstoppable (or some better written version of it) should let our Boss handle SoL spells pretty effectively. Flashing Red I just like as a way to let the class scatter attackers and cost actions once per fight giving him a bit more survivability in a way which could fit into almost anythings character concept. We could change Unstoppable to just buffing saves for less damage if you wanted something less dramatic.

I think Take One For The Team is a bad ability. It takes away the ability of the players to decide what they target and that makes the multimonster seem much more disempowering to interact with. In a 4 level version of the class I think the first level should make you function more as a solo than a boss monster and each other level should add another part of your multi-form._________________

AOE Save or Sucks should be less threatening to the Boss because he gets multiple saves against the effect.

Color spray still (effectively) single-handedly wins the fight if it gets three out of four opponents. The Big Boss doesn't have very much in the way of save bonuses to make it less susceptible to that sort of shit (its individual components are actually underlevelled relative to its own CR, though you would obviously use it as a boss fight where it is a higher EL than the party level, which somewhat mitigates that), and I'm just not really a fan of trading hitpoints to shake off conditions. I've tried that solution before in my games, and no one really found it satisfying. Big Boss is meant to be an alternative solution in which your save-or-suck spells still give you what's on the label without shutting down the boss in one go.

Dean wrote:

Looking at the class, Glorious Communism should either be the default rules or not included at all. It's a real game changer for how the class operates with the rules.

Glorious Communism's biggest effect is that a bunch of small stat bonuses that previously benefitted only one component creature now benefit all four. The only real problem I see with that is if you invested in a bunch of identical items during levels 1-3 which suddenly become redundant at level 4. I find it difficult to be concerned about that; you're getting monsters as-is out of the MM, so even without items they are going to be the CR you need them to be. At a standard table, a PC Big Boss is going to get their 1/4th of the treasure (plus maybe a plethora of minor bullshit because wish economy) and an NPC Big Boss is going to have whatever the DM gives it. And at level 4, you get more mileage out of each individual item.

Dean wrote:

I think Take One For The Team is a bad ability. It takes away the ability of the players to decide what they target and that makes the multimonster seem much more disempowering to interact with.

Only the primary creature (the original) can use Take One for the Team, and only once per round. I do not think the ability could possibly trigger enough to be disempowering. It's just a thing the Big Boss does once each round to help control its own demise (and also potentially "negate" one effect each round if a part has been save-or-sucked out of the fight but not killed). Remember that the default assumption is that the Big Boss is going to be hit with at least four different effects each round.
Combined levels 4 and 5.

Last edited by DSMatticus on Sun Mar 08, 2015 7:42 am; edited 3 times in total

My bad on Take One For The Team. I didn't see it was primary creature only. That's fine.

I'd move Glorious Communism to the 3rd level then, in line with Take One For The Team. Mostly because I'm uninterested in calculating attacks, saves, stats, and AC for two slightly different but virtually identical characters for a single level. That's needless minutia.

Color Spray is a 1 round stun effect if failed by all 4 copies at once. That's hardly a game ender. Even level appropriate version of the effect like Fear or Stinking Cloud probably can't end a combat since the Boss gets 4 different saves against the effect and can keep acting as long as someone saves. I think SoL's will be much less of a problem than you think especially if combined with some hp for save mechanic. If you don't like hp for immunity I get that, what about hp for saves? Letting the Boss take damage to get a +5 to his saves after rolling. I like the idea of being able to turn encounter enders into damage which synergizes with how the rest of your team is fighting. It also lets the boss make tactical choices about what effects should be let through and what he has to throw off to be able to fight. The damage should be level dependent in some way because +5 to saves is always level appropriately powerful.

Not feeling Flashing Red? I thought it'd be a cool way for the boss to throw people around once per fight which seems to be a thing people want out of their boss fights. If you think it's too video gamey that's understandable._________________

Flashing Red is cool for the arcade feel, but this class seems a bit more general.

I think a PrC that was entered after Big Boss - not sure what you call it but the idea is you follow an ancient code of conduct for monsters that involves telegraphing your moves to some extent in exchange for more power. But basically is the "arcade boss monster" experience. So it could have:

Flashing Red - Literally does make you flash red.
Pattern of Aggression - Attack faster but in a defined pattern. You get one or more extra attacks at no penalty, but people who have seen you do this before have a significant bonus against it.
Ghost Flicker - After taking damage, you can activate this. Reduced or nonexistant offensive actions next round, but you are also invulnerable and untargettable.
Final Form - When reduced to half HP, transform to more powerful form.
Ultra Beam - Powerful AoE, visibly charged up. Foes can avoid it automatically by sacrificing their next round's action, otherwise they get no save.

Flashing Red is cool for the arcade feel, but this class seems a bit more general.

This. Big Boss is intended to be the most basic possible incarnation of the multimonster mechanic. You'll note that I pulled the multimonster rules out of the class features, so it's fairly easy to write new classes that leverage those mechanics. Big Boss is a template, and you're free to tinker with it to create new classes that do the same thing but different by pointing to the multimonster rules.

Here's a rough sketch of a class for the chimeric abominations OgreBattle mentioned:

Chimeric Abomination"Okay, so it's a lion, a goat, and a snake, but that still doesn't explain why it can breathe fire."

Requirements: You must not have any class levels other than levels in this class. Also you should probably be an animal or a magical beast.

Two's Company: You become a multimonster and may select as a secondary creature any animal or magical beast whose CR is at least 3 less than your own character level (or CR, if that is more appropriate). Whenever you gain a level, you may choose a new creature or upgrade your existing one, so long as it remains 3 below your own character level (or CR).

Lesser Breath Weapon: Choose a breath weapon which deals only damage and belongs to any monster whose CR is your's or less. The primary creature gains that breath weapon. Recalculate the DC using your own HD, ability scores, and other bonuses.

Three's a Crowd: You gain an additional secondary creature exactly as described in Two's Company. The two creatures must not be identical.

Extra Move Action: You gain a second shared move action.

Greater Breath Weapon: Choose a breath weapon which inflicts some negative condition (it may also deal damage) that belongs to any monster whose CR is your's or less. The primary creature gains that breath weapon. Recalculate the DC using your own HD, ability scores, and other bonuses.

Quickened Lesser Breath Weapon: The breath weapon gained at level 2 may now be used as a swift action. If the breath weapon does not already have a cooldown, you must wait 1d4 rounds before using it again after electing to activate it as a swift action.
Instead of getting Take one for the Team (which is incredibly generic), Glorious Communism (chimera are not known for their use of magic items), or a fourth monster (three is plenty for a proper chimera), you get to pilfer breath weapons from the monster manual using your full CR (not the CR of your component creatures; your big boss levels count). It could probably use a tiny bit of buffing at level 4, but that's pretty chimera-ey.

Edit: Cleaned up a bunch of copy-paste errors.

Last edited by DSMatticus on Tue Mar 10, 2015 3:14 am; edited 3 times in total

Flashing Red: For one round you can modify your spells or spell like abilities as if by the Explosive Spell metamagic. This does not change spell levels and it functions with spell like abilities Additionally anyone you hit with a melee attack is affected as if they had been hit with a successful Awesome Blow attack. This is an extraordinary ability and can be used once every 5 minutes.

1 Unstoppable, Boss Fight
2 Two of a Kind, Extra Move Action, Glorious Communism
3 More Unstoppable, Three of a Kind
4 Four of a Kind

Unstoppable: You can grit your way through most effects. A Final Boss can deal himself 1d6 damage per character level to gain a +5 bonus to a saving throw. He can make this choice after seeing the result of the saving throw.

Boss Fight: (Ex)You have a powerful move you use when desperate. Choose from one of the following abilities
Blast Back: For one round anyone you hit with a damaging spell, spell like ability, supernatural ability, or a melee attack must make a Reflex Save or be thrown 10 feet away from the origin of the effect and fall prone. You may use this ability once every 3 rounds.
Flicker: As an immediate action you can activate a Temporal Stasis spell on yourself that lasts for 1 round.
Ultimate Attack: You may spend a full round action and make yourself immobile for 1 turn. If you do this then next turn, on the initiative count you began this effect, you may unleash an attack as a full round action that targets every creature in line of sight out to long range and deals them 2d6 damage per level with no save. Once you've taken the full round action there is a maelstorm of energy and wind out to long range that persists until you use the attack. You may use this ability once every 3 rounds.

Two of a Kind:You gain an additional secondary creature that is an identical copy of yourself. Your copy does not gain any of the class features from Final Boss except Unstoppable and More Unstoppable, though it still has the class levels. This creature is referred to as your Primary Copy and rolls it's own initiative in combat.

Extra Move Action: You gain a second shared move action.

Glorious Communism: Unlike most multimonsters, any number of component creatures may benefit from the same magic item at any given time. While multiple component creatures may attune the same magical armor for its enhancement bonus and special properties, only one component creature may actually wear a piece of armor for its non-enhancement armor bonus. Item usage limits (such as daily uses) are tracked per item, not per user.

Three of a Kind: You gain an additional copy of yourself as described in Two Of A Kind. This copy acts on your initiative count.

More Unstoppable: A Final Boss may deal himself 1d6 damage per character level to remove any of the following conditions: Blinded, Confused, Dazed, Exhausted, Frightened, Panicked, Helpless, Nauseated, Paralyzed, Petrified, Staggered, or Stunned. He may do this even if one of these conditions would prevent him from taking an action.

Four of a Kind: You gain an additional copy of yourself as described in Two Of A Kind. This copy acts on your primary copies initiative count.

COMMENTARY: So this is my idea of what a boss might look like. I'd want to work more on the Boss Fight attacks and special abilities. Having enough to give everyone a power that made them last a little longer against a party and made each boss fight in a campaign feel fresh and interesting would be ideal._________________

I was actually kind of expecting Final Boss to be using "This isn't even my final form!", a kind of altered version of the multimonster rules being used here but gaining more powerful multimonsters in exchange for having to use them one at a time instead of getting all 4 at once.

That still might be a good idea for a third class if anyone wants to run with it.

Edit: Also for final boss, the later copies gaining actions on the same initiative count as the first ones seems potentially problematic. Is there any reason why you don't just roll each separately, or even go with something like "-5 on initiative for each subsequent copy"?

Edit2: On Glorious Communism, why limit the benefit from armor worn to a single component? If anything it seems to me like the magical enhancements that are being shared should be harder to get than the inherent effect. I guess I just kind of find it hard to wrap my head around a Big Boss wearing full plate but 3/4ths of him count as totally unarmored for whatever reason.

Last edited by Seerow on Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:04 am; edited 2 times in total

1 Multiple Forms, First Form
2 Second Form, Glorious Communism
3 Third Form, Extra Move Action
4 Final Form

Multiple Forms: You become a multimonster, however you may only manifest two of the forms granted by this class at a time (the original creature is a form and counts towards this limit). Unmanifested forms do not exist and are not a part of the current multimonster (and as such cannot be affected by abilities and do not produce even passive effects), but you can target them with beneficial restorative effects as normal. Whenever a currently manifested form is reduced to -10 hitpoints (whether they "die" or not, see the multimonster death rules), you may swap that form for another. Otherwise, the only way to swap forms is for the multimonster to give up all of its actions that round and then it may swap one or both. Newly manifested forms roll initiative immediately and act for the first time in the next round. The death rules for multimonsters are not changed, so you can and will die if you refuse to swap out when both manifested forms are pushed to -9 hitpoints or killed.

First Form: Choose any monster whose CR is at least 3 less than your own character level (or CR, if that is more appropriate). Whenever you gain a level, you may choose a new creature or upgrade your existing one, so long as it remains 3 below your own character level (or CR). In this context, monster means "any creature that does not have class levels." This monster becomes one of the forms you can manifest using Multiple Forms.

Second Form: Choose an additional monster as described in First Form. This monster becomes one of the forms you can manifest using Multiple Forms.

Glorious Communism: Unlike most multimonsters, any number of component creatures may benefit from the same magic item at any given time. While multiple component creatures may attune the same magical armor for its enhancement bonus and special properties, only one component creature may actually wear a piece of armor for its non-enhancement armor bonus. Item usage limits (such as daily uses) are tracked per item, not per user.

Third Form: Choose an additional monster as described in First Form. This monster becomes one of the forms you can manifest using Multiple Forms.

Extra Move Action: You gain a second shared move action.

Ultimate Form: Choose any monster whose CR is at least 3 less than your own character level (or CR, if that is more appropriate). Whenever you gain a level, you may choose a new creature or upgrade your existing one, so long as it remains 3 below your own character level (or CR). In this context, monster means "any creature that does not have class levels." Whenever you are reduced to two forms with positive hitpoints, any component creature can manifest this form as a free action without it counting towards the two form limit. This form unmanifests as soon as the requirements to manifest it in the first place are no longer met.
You get an extra creature relative to Big Boss, but you are less powerful in any given round of combat because there are less of you taking actions.

Seerow wrote:

Edit2: On Glorious Communism, why limit the benefit from armor worn to a single component? If anything it seems to me like the magical enhancements that are being shared should be harder to get than the inherent effect. I guess I just kind of find it hard to wrap my head around a Big Boss wearing full plate but 3/4ths of him count as totally unarmored for whatever reason.

Because I think it makes it considerably less likely that one of the component creatures will be a non-humanoid, unarmored monster which already has crazy AC getting to wear full plate on top of that simply because they happen to be grafted onto a dude in heavy armor. Nothing stops you from armoring each component creature separately (and sharing a single enhancement bonus) if you want.

Fluff-wise, imagine it however you want. As far as I care, you could be a dude who has replaced his tongue with a giant constrictor snake or a dude with a dire gerbil living inside his asshole, neither of which would necessarily benefit from the armor of their host but could be armored independently.

Last edited by DSMatticus on Tue Mar 17, 2015 3:45 am; edited 1 time in total

I was actually kind of expecting Final Boss to be using "This isn't even my final form!"

It's more meant to be like Cobra Commander, Megatron, or Darkseid. The guy who's supposed to be able to take an entire team by himself despite not being conceptually much different than the rest of them. I figured just letting a character lose levels to force multiply himself made some sense. Big Bad may have been a more appropriate name but it seemed too close to Big Boss.

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Edit: Also for final boss, the later copies gaining actions on the same initiative count as the first ones seems potentially problematic. Is there any reason why you don't just roll each separately, or even go with something like "-5 on initiative for each subsequent copy"?

I've tried to clarify the language a bit more. As is the main character gets an initiative score, then the first copy gets it's own initiative score, then the second copy goes on the main character's initiative score, then the third copy goes on the first copies initiative score. So there's two versions of you per initiative score. The idea is to let the character go more often to keep fights against them active and avoid the dogpile effect of most boss fights. We could possibly do the same thing by saying that the main character should roll initiative, act on that count, then his copy acts on that count -5._________________